Description

Hegel’s debts to ancient philosophy are widely acknowledged by scholars, and by the philosopher himself. Roughly half of his Lectures on the History of Philosophy is devoted to ancient philosophy, and throughout his work Hegel frequently frames his positions in relation to the thinkers and movements of antiquity. This volume presents original essays from leading scholars dealing with Hegel’s debts to ancient thinkers, as well as his own, often problematic readings of ancient philosophy. While around half of the chapters discuss Hegel’s treatment of Aristotle—a topic that has long been at the forefront of scholarship—the other half explore his relationship to such ancient figures as Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Sextus Empiricus, and the Stoics. The essays challenge a number of longstanding scholarly assumptions regarding, for example, Hegel’s denigration of the "mythical," his developmentalist approach to ancient thought, his conception of the state in relation to the Greek polis, his "hermeneutic" of the Platonic dialogues, and his use of Aristotelian concepts in arguments concerning the psyche, the body, and their unity and distinction.​

Table of Contents

Editor’s Introduction Glenn Alexander Magee

1. Xenophanes and Pre-Socratic Thought: A Critical Perspective on Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy Robert Metcalf

2. On the Speculative Significance of Anaxagoras in Hegel’s Lectures Andrew Davis

3. Hegel on the Trial of Socrates and the End of Aesthetic Democracy Paul Wilford

4. How Hegel Read the Platonic Dialogues Jere Surber

5. The Platonic Dimension of Hegel’s System Lawrence Bruce-Robertson

6. Mens Divina as Lebendigkeit: Hegel's Interpretation of MetaphysicsAndy German

7. The Way Past the Stripping Argument in Hegel and Aristotle Joshua Mendelsohn

8. The Aristotelian Metaphysics of Hegel’s ‘Soul’ Allegra de Laurentiis

About the Editor

Glenn Alexander Magee is Professor of Philosophy at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. He is the author of Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition (2001) and The Hegel Dictionary (2011), as well as editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism (2016). He was Vice President of the Hegel Society of America from 2014 to 2016.